Kme

Narry a word that I have heard but it would not surprise me any. Doubt if they will ever sell one of theirs here again after what the county went through the first time they bought one. I remember some of the stuff they built for the Air Force ages ago.YUK. Some people like em and some don't.

Why? Because we are firemen. We are decent human beings. We would be compelled by the overwhelming impulse to save an innocent child from a tragic, painful death because in the end, we are MEN.

I A C O J
FTM-PTB

Honorary Disclaimer: While I am a manufacturer representative, I am not here to sell my product. Any advice or knowledge shared is for informational purposes only. I do not use Firehouse.Com for promotional purposes.

Why? Because we are firemen. We are decent human beings. We would be compelled by the overwhelming impulse to save an innocent child from a tragic, painful death because in the end, we are MEN.

I A C O J
FTM-PTB

Honorary Disclaimer: While I am a manufacturer representative, I am not here to sell my product. Any advice or knowledge shared is for informational purposes only. I do not use Firehouse.Com for promotional purposes.

What's the difference

Offical Word from KME President John J. Kovatch III

Hi, my name is Donald Leshko, i am fire chief of the Hazleton Fire Department in Hazleton PA, we are a combination career/volunteer department and are about 15 minutes from KME main plant in Nesqhoning PA, my volunteer department owns 2 KME's John Kovatch is a personal friend of mine and i went right to the source after i read this, here is the email he replyed back to me and asked me to post the following:

John J. Kovatch III, President of KME writes the following

Certainly not in my lifetime. I know my health is good and I intend to be around for quite a while yet. I know my son, John Kovatch IV, who is in his third year of college will be well prepared to assume my responsibilities when I decide to retire in about 15 to 20 years. Kovatch has been in business for 59 years and 308 days. What other major companies can claim this? Never a change in ownership outside of the immediate family. The Kovatch family and KME is here to stay!

If anyone doubts that Mr. Kovatch wrote me this, please write me directly and i will provide it validity to you

Reliable

Ledebuhr1
Thank you for asking that comment, and i will answer in a two part way, has my KME's been reliable, YES, Have i had problem with my KME's, YES, but you tell me any fire truck manufactor in the world today that builds a vehicle and you don't have at least one problem with it, there is NONE, as i said my career department we have three of them, we run on the average about 600 calls a year, close to 35 -40 working fires, and a population of about 33,000, Hazleton has one of the fastest growing 3rd class city populations in the State of PA right now. Our KME's have taken a beaten, and still perform, yes we have had our bugs with them, but most of the problems , a good bit and i went and looked at past repairs tonight in our files have been on items that KME did not make, it was items supplied by vendors, KME installed them on our vehicle, and the items failed, so to me that is not a KME problem. and i can say the same in my volunteer department, now those vehicles don't see the call volume my city vehicles do, but they are holding up great, big issue there is items on the motors that get recalled. KME don't build the motors, and another thing i am not going to hide is that i use to work for KME, from 1995 to 2000, i was a plumber for them on there fire pump line, the only reason i left was got my job as a career firefighter in Hazleton, if i did not get my job in Hazleton i would still be at KME, I can tell you this, there is no one, NO ONE , that is building fire trucks today that will do the plumbing like KME, many people try to copy , and makes me laugh when i see it, but no one can plumb a vehicle like KME, that is truely custom there . and i go to FDIC every year along with Fire Expo in harrisburg, and there are so many people that try to copy again what KME does in plumbing and it is sad, plus the fact that customers are letting there manufactors do it. that is why it is so important to go do a prepaint inspection, when that happens, your vehicle should just be done getting plumbed, make sure you the customer has a say in every aspect of that vehicles, especially panel layout, because it is to late when you are there to take delievery and somthing is wrong, Sorry i got off the point of the question you asked. so yes my KME's are reliable, i am meeting with potential customers this weekend that are coming to McAdoo to look at our KME's , i open this invitation to anyone that reads this post, If you are looking or considering KME, and coming to the Main plant in Nesqhoning for a tour, let me know, if you want to see or view any of my KME's i would be happy to show you them and help anyone any how. it is a big investment in any new fire appartus you purchase, and money is tight today, the best advise i will give you is look at everything for YOURSELF, don't get tunnel vision. Hope that answered your question, i know it was a little long, but somtimes i get carried away

My department purchased a new Kme Excel " Extreme " series 1500 gpm pumper apparatus from the J.B. Hunt Co of Trenton, N.J. about 8 months ago. The dealer has been very good to us, we had a few small problems that were taken care of very fast. we go on about 300 calls a year in a all VOL. company. The stainless steel construction is top of the line , and only cost $ 275,000 without equipment! KME trucks are getting alot better.

I too will have to stick up for KME. My dept. has a 98 KME on an International chassis and any problems (which were few) were with the chassis and drivetrain. The body and plumbing has held up great. Four surrounding departments have bought KMEs in the last 3 years and I have not heard any complaints. Any complaints I have heard were from trucks built in the 80's. But I believe that KME, like any reputable manufacturer, learned from these problems and fixed them. Anytime a new innovation comes out (ie. multiplexing) there will be bugs and it will take time to perfect it. I do not believe that any manufacture is immune to such problems. I also believe that KME has an exellent dealer network (at least around here) that will take care of their customers after the sale.

Massffpm60, i read your post and sorry to hear about your quint failing at every Major fire you had. If you are not having satisfaction with getting answers and upset, which i know i would be due to i would not want my quint failing at any fire. please let me know your department name and information, i will do my very best to get you some help , i know a lot of people like to come on this forum and bash KME along with many other manufactors, but that is not helping anyone, it onlys makes issue worse, of couse we all have problems with new appartus, but if you can't offer help to brother fireman in getting issues taken care of, why be a brother firefighter, and i think i have a pretty good connection into KME if you saw the previous post i wrote on here, so please let me know if i can help,

Ditto, Ditto, and Ditto.

Originally Posted by massffpm60

we have a kme quint it has failed at every major fire we had sence we got it i would like to hear from all departments that have had problems with there kme

That's exactly the same experience with ours! That is, if it ever makes it that far. It often dies on the apron, or two blocks out while enroute, though. I feel sorry as of late for all the people at KME;I mean I don't want anybody to go out of business or lose their jobs, for pete's sake. But common guys, it's high time for a major engineering and philosophy overhaul.

Go on back in this thread, way back, and look up the threads on KME issues, buddy! We're going over old issues on this one. By the way, how old or new is yours? Anyway, good luck.

CptnMatt
If i could can i ask yea a few questions on the matter you talked about, what year is your KME?? make, model and vehicle type?? what department do you run with?? and the problem you are talking about, does it happen everytime you take the vehicle out of the station?? Did you have it checked out when it did this and what did the service people come up with?? and do you know by chance who your dealer is??

IF you could answer those questions for me, i can see if i can find out some answers for you or get you help if hte problem is still not fixed, sounds pretty serious to me that it keeps dieing every time the vehicles come out no your apron or gets two blocks away and dies. so please if you can write me back, even email me if you want c229@ptd.net i have some good contacts at the KME plants and try to get you some answers and get this situation fixed so we can get your vehicle back in service.

Well, Since You Asked,...

Dear hfdchiefone,
Well, kind Sir, I surely do appreciate your concern for a fellow department, and I am appreciative of your willingness to intervene. However, I really don't think that there is anything extraordinarily facile, i.e., any one thing that can be singled out as to what would be a simple, easy fix on this animal. It's not like the situation is merely that there is some minor thing that scores of mechanics, in the course of dozens upon dozens of trips to both the local dealers, as well as the main factory in Pennsylvania, [a 1,000 miles away], haven't been able to remedy already. I mean, It's not as if we're incapable of sound and prudent operation, or maintenance, of this thing. The comments of mine of it's dying on the way to the fire, on occasions, is not the main issue, anyway. What DOES INDEED seem to be the common area of unreliability in this 1998 100' Aerialcat is both the computer-controlled electrical system that does all of the BAD THINGS that oh-so-many other owners have repeatedly mentioned on this website over a great many years, and the aerial's numerous sensors that automatically shut this thing down ON ITS OWN ACCORD, WITHOUT LETTING ANYONE KNOW WHY THE AERIAL'S DOWN. AND IT COULD BE FOR ANY ONE OF A GREAT NUMBER OF REASONS! FAULTY SENSORS, WIRING FAULTS IN THE CIRCUITRY, BAD WIRES THEMSELVES. we've experienced them all, and more, and so have many, many, others here as well.

Now, to digress over to a point of personal opinion, I think that the model's most glairing design flaw is from AN ARROGANT COMPUTER CHIP DESIGNER WHO THINKS THAT A CHIP SHOULD HAVE MORE AUTHORITY THAN THE ENGINEERS THEMSELVES OVER THE OPERATION OF THEIR AERIALCAT!!! Again, this last point is just an opinion of mine, having been assigned to operate this thing for a few years, before becoming a Captain.

WE, THE NUMEROUS KME AERIALCAT OPERATORS WHO'VE COMPLAINED ON THIS WEBSITE HERE, HAVE EXPERIENCED THEM ALL, AND MORE, OVER THE YEARS. IT'S NOT JUST ME ALONE, AS THESE FORUM SITES HAVE DISPLAYED. It's not just us alone, in my department, alone.

This aerial has failed us in the midst of greatest need consistantly, especially at the last two mega-fires of ours that each made National news from here over the last 4 years alone. So no, Dear Chief, I don't quite honestly think that there is anything that you could personally do for us -or all the other KME aerial owners across the United States- other than intervene with the engineers at KME to redesign their entire electrical systems to be more trouble-free and (While they are at it) more user friendly. Specifically, there should be a screen, readout, or indicator light system (You and they can choose which: - I don't care which!) that tells the Apparatus Engineer/Operator just why the truck will no longer work. It shouldn't just shut down your aerial on its own without letting you at least know why!!!

And you shouldn't have to go chasing all over the rig, and opening up various panels to bend down and into the dark inner recesses of the electrical systems to try to trip relays or other such nonsense in order to regain some sense of control of the apparatus. Especially in the midst of the confusion of any fire scene that's big enough to be needing a 100' Aerial in action, anyway.

And the electrical system should be reworked so that overloads don't burn up all the wiring itself that's running throughout the whole rig, while they're at it. What, why, or how they decide to do that, I don't know or exactly care. I'm not the electrical engineer. I'm the Apparatus Engineer.

Well, you asked for it, so there it is. The opinions mentioned throughout this post are mine alone, but they are based on real and personal experiences of mine, and the references to the opinion and comments of others are to the best of my recollection. As I said in my earlier post, I don't have any particular hard feelings for KME personally, and I do think there is a huge hole for improvement in all American Fire Apparatus types built by all manufacturers. KME has the potential to go into a deep retreat, and come out at the end of it, with a totally innovative and uniquely reliable line of 21st Century American Fire Apparatus that don't look anything like the staid old rigs that we all are using up to now; -designs that haven't significantly changed since the early 1920's. There is every potential that they (KME)could become the brand that would be the MUST HAVE in every engine bay in the U.S., instead of the other way around . It's all up to them. If you want to really help, maybe you could help Them to see that.